The proposed research is an investigation of the rotational strength of the chiral skew diene moiety using vacuum ultraviolet circular dichroism. A chemical resolution is described for an optically active acyclic hydrocarbon which is chiral only because it possesses this moiety as its sole chromophore. The choice of this target compound (2,5-dimethyl-3, 4-diisopropyl-2, 4-hexadiene) is discussed in terms of its unique qualities as a model compound for comparison with published theoretical treatments of optical activity. This research comprises the examination of the circular dichroism spectrum of the target compound in the gas phase once it is isolated. The objective is to answer two questions about optical activity in conjugated dienes: 1) do pi yield pi transitions contribute all of the rotational strength at wavelengths greater than 160nm? 2) Does the simplest quantum mechanical model provide a satisfactory description of the magnitudes and relative signs of the contributions from the pi yield pi transitions? Potential applications of this work to the conformations of nonrigid molecules in solution or in hydrophobic binding sites are discussed.